A lot of people pass the language test 1, 2 and 3 – and still do not speak the Danish language. They would like to take part in everyday conversations. To understand the Danes and to express themselves without any problems. But it doesn’t work. How can it be?
Often the reason is a lack of understanding for what is actually means to learn to speak Danish.
When we become adults we forget what learning a language is about. We want it to be about words in a book that we should be able to say. And we read and read and read, and try and try and try. But it does not work.
This seems to be quite relevant for the Danish language. Danish is characterized by a big difference in spoken and written form. The Danes simply say something else than they write.
How do we do it then? How do we learn to speak Danish?
Let´s take your mother tongue as an example. How did you learn to speak that one? Was it by sitting and reading a book?
You started learning to master your mother tongue already when you were in your mom´s stomach. You listened to what was going on outside, and when you came out you continued to listen and you interacted with your surroundings.
Then one important day arrived. The day you started in school. Now you were going to learn something new; to read and to write.
You have to look at learning Danish the same way. You have to divide the language into two elements; the written form and the spoken form.
And what is the spoken form about? It is about dialogue and it is about sound. It is concretely about the melody of speech, which you have to start to listen to.
